Creampuff Revolution

Things Creampuff Will Tell You She Did On Her Vacation . . .

but which actually happened only in my mind.

My beaverancée works very hard. When she is not working, she is often thinking about working. She thinks about it at night when I'm trying to get laid when we're trying to go to sleep. She thinks about it early in the morning. Real early. I've been coaxed gently and lovingly awake more times than I care to recall, only to hear her croon the following sweet nothings:

"I've got a client calling at six this morning. Want me to close the door?"

I sometimes joke to Katr that she lured me into this relationship by appearing to enjoy taking time off. She then replies that I lured HER in by appearing to enjoy being gainfully employed. Touché.

In between kinzin launching and my new contract beginning in May, we had a little window of possible holiday time and I decided Katr was ripe for her first non-family/non-work-related vacation in 3 years. So I called my parents and asked if we could stay at their empty place in Victoria for a few days.

Katr and I both had big plans for the 3 days we were going to be "unplugged". These plans included taking photos of all the adventures we'd be having about town. Here are some of things we had in mind.

Visiting the Free Range Bunnies at UVic

My brother told us that the grounds of the University of Victoria are overrun with cute, cute bunnies. All the time. In fact, when you're down and out and feeling just too existential to go to another class, these cute bunnies have been known to warm your heart while they chew on your socks.

We hoped to feed carrots to these bunnies. Large, cartoonish carrots, like you'd draw in Microsoft Paint, because you don't have Photoshop. Shut up.

I was also hoping to shoot a bunny video for my ongoing nature series, partly for artistic reasons, but mainly to answer the seal video showboating my cousin and his girlfriend posted on THEIR blog.

Hold Hands in the Beautiful Butchart Gardens

I first went to the Butchart Gardens on a band trip in March of 1989. It was beautiful then and spring hadn't really hit. "Just wait!" the locals said, "in the spring, it's amazing!" Coming from Edmonton, where a classmate of ours had lost a small part of her ear in the freezing fuckin' cold the week before, the fact that ANYTHING was green seemed like a miracle to us.

I was eager to see the gardens in full bloom this time and so was Katr. This is the scene I imagined:

"Oh my god. Isn't that fountain gorgeous? No one's looking - quick, take off your shirt!"

We love to be natural in Nature. Katr's the redhead.

Take a Horse-Drawn Carriage Ride

When you're at my parents condo, every now and then a horse goes by and it's like you're back in the early 20th century, but with better plumbing. Katr and I thought it might be fun to be part of the action - feel the clip-clop of hooves, listen to the sonsy driver, watch the horses crap into a bag. Romantic!

 

What We Actually Did

• Stayed inside (it was raining, shut up)
• Slept
• Read books
• Slept
• Ate
• Slept
• Made some of these:

• Listened to Bob Marley

Also - and this may be the brownies talking - but I think we spent a morning at the Willowstream Spa at the Empress Hotel being rubbed for money. All I know is that there's nail polish on my toes where there was none before and we suddenly have a bag of new, expensive-looking grooming products. The kind you buy when you're blissed out and defenseless and your hands are too moisturized to grip your credit card properly. And you're humming Bob Marley. 

Sadly, our short respite is over and we're getting on a plane at the crack of dawn's ass tomorrow morning for a business trip. Not only will there be no brownies, but we will also be wearing dress pants for three days straight!! I don't want to alarm you all . . . but I may have to shoot the sheriff.

Creampuff WINS!! And Then Tries to Regift.

This Saturday, Katr and I attended the awards ceremony for ChicTech, a project which encourages young women and girls to expand on or develop an interest in Computer Science. Young ladies - it's HOT. Get in on it! Katr was there in her capacity as a website judge and sponsor-representative (kinzin was a sponsor) and I was there in my capacity as Katr's:

Me: "Arm candy?"

Katr: "Sherpa."

Me: "Oh."

When we got there, some young volunteers handed out tickets for the door prize, which I tucked into my pocket. I never win things. Also, Katr felt that because I was sitting at the judges' table, my winning a door prize could end up looking like the sponsorship scandal that toppled our country's government a few years back and no one wants that. I look enough like Paul Martin as it is.

I tell you, though, it was an exciting, inspiring evening full of happy high school girl web designers, proud mentors, encouraging female professors and kick-ass punch and by the time the door prize draw rolled around, I was too caught up in the moment to act cool. Katr's favourite thing is how, when she brings me anywhere new, I end up acting like a dork. The Chictech event was no exception.

As they started to call the ticket numbers, my hands were actually shaking. There was a moment when I thought I'd won, but it turned out that the Computing Sciences professor NEXT to me was the winner that time. "Ha ha ha!" she said to me, as she returned to the table, prize in hand. I swallowed the bitter humiliation of being trash-talked by the keynote speaker. And then, up the at the front, I heard Daphne call the magic number: 061.

"YES!!" I screamed, pumping my fists in the air and jumping out of my cafeteria chair. My only regret is not turning to the professor of Computing Sciences and yelling "In your FACE, Condon! You trash-talking hussy!" I bounced up to the front of the room to claim my winnings, urged on by bewildered clapping and nervous chuckling. "I never saw someone so excited to win a t-shirt before," quipped one of the judges. "JEALOUS?" I roared. She backed off and I fondled my prize.

Here's the shirt. I know. It's a Northern Voice shirt and it's beautiful in a way that only door prizes can be. Unfortunately, it's also "girl's large".

Just to give you some size perspective, here's the shirt on top of one of my shirts.

Needless to say, I won't be wearing this shirt, unless I slice open my leg in a horrible ice cream scoop debacle and need a tourniquet. But I WILL send this tiny shirt anywhere in the world, to the first one of you who e-mails me your list of favourite lesbians books and/or movies.

Remember back in February when I pleaded with you all for some lesbian book recommendations? Well, one of you - Smitty - actually WRITES lesbian books and she dropped hers off at my door in Toronto in March and I devoured them both, like a starving creampuff in a Tim Hortons. Of Drag Kings and the Wheel of Fate and Burning Dreams, both published by Bold Strokes Books, were, as I said to Smitty, fantastic and just the thing to be reading while I was away from, and pining for, my love. Because there's no better way to exacerbate your already frustrating desires and yearnings than reading hot lesbian fiction. I decided, while following the adventures of professor Rosalind and hot young drag king Taryn, that I need to start making a list, not just for me, but for all the other lesbians who are looking for some good fiction!! That's right - I don't do these things for me. I do them for YOU.

To that end, I've finally started my lesbian book list over at Squidoo (where my better half has the #1 "Shopping" lens at the moment). It's still a work in progress, obviously and I'll tell you now, I'm only listing books I actually liked. I hate to miss out on giving bitchy reviews, though, so I also started a lesbian film list. Because Katr and I watched Girlplay this weekend and while I'm glad Lacie and What's-Her-Name found lurve in the theatre, the movie sucked so bad I still have the marks.

Creampuff Becomes Software Widow

First things first: The 10th edition of the International Carnival of Pozitivities is now available at Transcending Gender. Amazing stuff, as usual, and Jen Burke did an excellent job of hosting. Ron Hudson, founder of the ICP, is hosting the next edition but he's always looking for folks to host the Carnival. It's a good time, people, and Ron will guide you though the whole thing with his customary Southern hospitality!  Contact Ron if you'd like to host and if you want to submit a post to the next edition of the Carnival, you can do that here.

In other exciting news, kinzin, the family networking software that Katr's been working on since August, launched this week! Check it out! Join up! Enjoy the peripatetic penguins! Such cute penguins . . .

When I got back from Toronto last week, Katr and the team were deep in the throes of launch preparation and and we kinzin widows (and, in some cases, orphans) tried to be supportive, loving and patient until the big day had come and gone and we could all get back to our normal routine of being paid attention to.

As we all know, I consider "paying attention to me" to be one of Katr's key functions.The thing is that when Katr's all stressed out and pulling long hours, she has a plan for the 30 earth seconds daily when she's not busy working. Her plan involves relaxing quietly, either with some computer-related escape or some other form of entertainment. You may find this hard to believe, but hearing me yap about nothing for hours on end isn't always a great tension release - for HER. Me, I can't really help it. I'm like a bat and talking is my sonar. I send it out across the room and when you give off subtle or overt signs of yap-fatigue, that's how I know I'm about to hit a wall.

So naturally, I was thrilled when kinzin launched this week but I quickly realized that even though the launch was delightful and well-received, the "constant work and stress" part was not over for young Katr. Despite all the testing and user feedback that happen before a product launches, there are still surprises to deal with and tweaks to make. It's kind of like when the historically accurate name you chose for a character in a play looks great on the page, but you discover at the reading that the name, spoken aloud by an actor, sounds like "Mrs. Crotch-tits". Goddamn Mrs. Crotch-tits.

So what am I doing to fill the lonely hours? Joining a knitting group? Getting out more? Calling the 5 people I know in Vancouver? Calling my friends back in Toronto? No, no - I'm looking at DOGS. (Dawn, this picture is for you.)

A big draw of this apartment was that we could have an outdoor grill and a dog. Because of a variety of travel plans, we decided that we wouldn't start the dog adoption process until the end of June. So why am I spending hours on Petfinder.com looking at pooches? Because I CAN'T HELP MYSELF. (Also, I"m jealous of Femiknit Mafia's adorable new addition.) Looking at dogs that will probably be adopted by the time we're ready for one is akin to the apartment porn I spent days surfing at back in November. In fact, I was going to refer to my search for dogs in the same way, but I don't want to get a lot of creepy people googling "dog pr0n". That's right, dog pr0n sickos - the dogs and I say "NO!"

As with the apartments, if there's no photo of the dog, I'm not interested and if the dog has red-eye, I want to e-mail the ad-poster and say "Your dog looks like hot evil. Maybe take another picture." Also, it seems like there are a lot of poor homeless pit bulls out there. Poor pit bulls.

After several days of pooch-gazing on a variety of animal rescue sites, I've graduated to Petfinder's classified ads, where I'm learning that alot of people are trying to get rid of their ferrets. I also found an ad which includes the phrase "No same sex dog adoptions". Does that mean you can't have two dogs of the same sex or that GAYS CAN'T HAVE YOUR DOG, Jen from Kentucky?? Either way, I am outraged. And then I remember that she's in Kentucky and am I really going to go adopt a pit bull from Kentucky? No.

And then today - just as I was wrapping up my daily dog pr0n hunt - I found Arthur:

This little gremlin of a Staffy Bull is about as hilarious as they come. With classic SBT moves, such as barking like a toad, snorting like a pig, and being a number one lap dog. About 9-10 years old, but don't tell him that- he knows that he is in the prime of his life. He will cover you in obnoxious kisses, and try to sleep on your face. He does not understand the meaning of personal space, but that makes us love him even more.

 

"Oh my god," I thought, as the tears welled up, "Arthur is ME IN DOG FORM!!" And I thought about running into the dining room to tell Katr about Arthur!! And then covering her in obnoxious kisses and trying to sleep on her face!! And then I thought "Hey . . . maybe she doesn't need TWO of us."

The search continues.

Creampuff Finally Posts a Recipe

A couple of weeks before I left Toronto, my (step)grandmother, Anro, came to town to see a play with me one Sunday afternoon. We went for lunch beforehand and had a great time catching up on all the family doings. She ranted about how she wants to start a clothing line for seniors (Tagline: "Not all seniors want to look like 15 year old hookers"). I ranted about how hotels SHOULD give us a deal on a block of guest rooms for our big gay wedding but they DON'T because they are ass, all of them, ASSSSSSSSSSSS! Somehow, perhaps in an attempt to relax, we ended up talking about reefer.

While my grandfather was alive, I visited him and Anro one fine Easter. My grandfather was an avid gardener and keen to show off his prize daffodils. We wandered about the yard until we came upon a patch of herbs and tiny vegetables in a back corner bordering the neighbours' yard. Grandpa told me that their neighbours ran a nursery and had arranged with my grandfather to help with the upkeep of the yard in exchange for a chunk of the garden. Then my grandfather took off in pursuit of a marauding squirrel and I took a closer look at the neighbours' plot. And I saw a lot of these.

Because the neighbours were growing weed in my grandfather's yard.

Fortunately, the neighbours are generous types and have been hooking my step-grandmother up fairly regularly since my grandpa passed last year. Sadly, it seems that Anro was having some issues enjoying her time with Mary Jane.

"I have trouble rolling my own," she said to me, "because of my arthritis. It's VERY frustrating. Maybe I should get a bong?"

"Well," I said to her, "I don't know from bongs. But I know you like chocolate." 

"I DO," she said, emphatically, then patted her silver bob back into place.

"Well, then do I have an idea for YOU."

She was all ears.

"First," I told her, "you're going to want to get yourself two boxes of Duncan Hines Brownie Mix. Or Betty Crocker. Whatever. Set one box aside. Take your weed and give it a good grind, with a mortar and pestle if you have them. Then you're going to take a couple of big pats of butter and heat 'em up in a frying pan. Then you're going to take about a tablespoon of your weed and you're going to LIGHTLY sautée the weed in the butter. LIGHTLY, though, don't overdo it. Then you're going to add the sautéed weed to the brownie mix along with all of the other wet ingredients and bake it, as you would normally do."

"Alright," she nodded, "I'll give that a try. But what's the other box of brownie mix for?"

"Well, here's the thing," I said. "While the first batch is in the oven, you'll want to make up a pan of pot-free brownies. See - sautéeing the weed in butter actually releases MORE of the THC than smoking does, so you may be dealing with some very powerful brownies and you shouldn't have too many at once. But of course, after you've had a few of the 'special brownies', you might feel the need to eat a WHOLE PAN OF BROWNIES. So that's what the second pan is for."

"Of COURSE," she said, "how smart."

"Aw, shucks," I said, "you have to say that, 'cause you're like my grandma."

Anro promised to whip up some of the brownies before my next visit the following week. Lunch at her place a week later was delicious and delightful but, sadly, there was no loot-bag of two-bites for the ride home. Ah, well. I assumed that, like me, Anro liked to TALK pot brownies, but not actually follow through. So you can imagine how I laughed when I got this e-mail from her:

"It was great to see you both times. I was mad at myself for forgetting to give you the special brownies I'd made for you to take on the bus. I had a few after I baked them and was glad it was evening & I wasn't going anywhere but the ceiling for awhile! They'll go back in the freezer for the next time."

Ah, Anro. Just knowing that you might be high on pot brownies and laughing hysterically at your cats the next time I call is reward enough for me.

Now that I'm back on the west coast, I'm looking forward to doing more baking myself. Katr's been carefully nursing the stick of peace and relaxation that she refers to as "The Joint" for many months now (fretting over its whereabouts, cooing to it, etc.), but yesterday we had a visit from the Ganja Fairy, who brought us a housewarming gift! What shall we make with it? Brownies? Banana bread? Flan? All I know for sure is that I'm stocking up on Cheetos. They may not be the most healthful snack when you've got the munchies, but at least the orange cheese powder lets me track where I've been.

Creampuff Moves to Vancouver, Part Deux - Electric Boogaleux

It occurred to me early Monday morning, as I sat on the john, hurling into a garbage can, that this was not the best way to be spending my last hours in Toronto. What the fuck is with me and the sudden, violent, simultaneous expulsions this year?? GAH. I had originally planned quite a vigorous day of activity for Monday, but as I barfed and otherwise eliminated all nutrients and available water from my system, my priorities shrank to two key items:

1. Make it to (and through) my own effing play reading Monday afternoon ; and

2. Make sure UPS picked up the two boxes I needed to ship to Vancouver Monday night.

Fortunately, the reading was a very informal "cool chicks sittin' around the table reading the thing so I could hear the results of 16 weeks of government funding out loud" kind of deal, so if I needed to sprint to the ladies shitter at any time, I could. As it turns out, the box of Immodium I took before the reading precluded any wild, inappropriate defecation. Three days later, it's still working. Thanks, Immodium. You can let go now.

Then Monday night, UPS was scheduled to come pick up my two boxes between 5:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. When I got home at 4:00 p.m. I sealed the boxes up and nearly passed out hauling them upstairs. It took me nearly an hour. I then installed myself on the couch with my Gatorade and a book about dog behaviour. I had to skip a lot of the questions in the book, because they involved dogs eating cat shit and then licking you and I didn't want to puke again. Even when I did read a chapter, I absorbed no information whatsoever, because I was checking the door for the UPS guy every two minutes. I did, however, absorb some much-needed sodium and potassium.

3 hours passed. The lovely roommates came home and began preparations for dinner. Everyone was there. Except UPS. I finally called them at 8:30 p.m. and asked what had happened. "Oh," the customer service representative said, "well, the driver was running behind."

"Oh - so he'll be here later?"

"Well, no. He didn't make it by the deadline, so . . ."

"So he didn't come at ALL?"

"Well, I can have him come by tomorrow!" she said brightly.

"Yeah. I'm leaving for the airport at 10 a.m." I told her, "can he come before that?"

"Oh dear. Well, it seems like we're in quite a pickle!"

Mmm . . . pickles.

My roommates generously offered to deal with the pickup. I got off the phone, then turned off the porch light in despair. Minutes later, there was a knock at the door. My heart leapt. Could it be . . . UPS?? It was! And sure, he was late and didn't have a waybill and didn't leave me a tracking number, but at least the boxes were away! I sucked hungrily at my Gatorade bottle and headed into the kitchen to relay my tale of shipping triumph to Grmi.

"Are you sure he was from UPS?" Grmi joked as he shaped ground beef into patties.

"Heh heh . . . oh. Huh."

In that moment, I realized I hadn't seen the van. I didn't fill out a waybill. I had no tracking number and I had paid by cheque. In all probability, this guy was actually from UPS. But there was also the possibility that, in my weakened state, I had just given our good linens, some small household appliances and several hundred dollars worth of books, yarn and DVDs to some random guy in a brown toque.

As you might imagine, I spent much of my last hour in Toronto on Tuesday phoning UPS. And I have to hand to them - those people rolled into ACTION. By the time I got home to my beloved, I'd gotten both the tracking numbers AND a separate call apologizing for the inconvenience AND, even though I paid for standard shipping, they switched it to "express" and I got my boxes first thing yesterday morning. So thank you, UPS! Thank you for not making off with Padu's future sweater and my Joss Whedon collection. Thank you for showing me what brown can do. You are good kind people.

As Jeba pointed out in her comment on the last post, I neglected to display the beautiful knitting needle carrier she gave me for our birthday! Because UPS rocks, I can show it to you now! And you may gaze in awe and envy. DO IT!

Ah. So fetching. Thanks, Jeba! It's particularly ideal for travelling, as you can stuff notions or a small project in its pouch. Or you can keep your weed in there. That sock looks like it's trying to make a break for it. Not long now, little sock.

While I'm at it, I ALSO did not take photos of the lovely knitting tote that Deye and Grmi gave me for my birthday. As you can see, it is very fine and the mix of tropical print and Anne of Green Gables-esque gingham suits me to a T. Plus, it has a pocket at the front. Where you can keep your weed.

Yes, those are VHS copies of Bring It On and Centre Stage on the shelf behind the bag. Shut it.

So I'm back in Vancouver! Reunited with my beaverancée! Ready for the next adventure! Right after I take this nap. And watch some Buffy.